


Personal Hells and Shotgun Shells

by lime_juice



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Other, man of snark has a big ouchie, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lime_juice/pseuds/lime_juice





	Personal Hells and Shotgun Shells

Peter is busy stuffing himself with breakfast when the call comes in.

“I got it!” he shouts past a mouth full of waffle and eggs. He vaults over the kitchen counter and picks up the call, nearly knocking over Clint’s bowl of cereal in the process.

Clint dodges Peter’s foot when it swings past his face and chokes on his Lucky Charms.

“How are you this alive already in the morning?” Clint demands hoarsely when he finally stops coughing. “I declare your hyperactiveness illegal. And you’re too young to do illegal things. Stop it.”

“Maybe some of us are just early risers,” Sam remarks somewhere behind him. “How about you come out sometime, I'll show you.”

Clint doesn’t answer, deciding instead to sulk into his cup of coffee. He leans against Natasha, who is sitting next to him quietly picking grapes out of a bowl of fruit.

“Who’s calling?” Steve asks, making his way into the kitchen. He comes to a stop behind Peter and looks over the boy’s shoulder at the screen.

Grey lines dance up and down the screen and Steve can’t hear anything except clipped, unintelligible shouting past the crackling buzz of static.

“Dunno,” Peter says a little breathlessly. “I think I saw Coulson for a second but it started spazzing out and I couldn’t make out anything he said after that.”

“I’ve never known Coulson to make house calls unless it was something urgent,” Clint pipes up. He’s practically sitting on top of Natasha now, but she doesn’t look the least bit bothered by the man sprawled out in her lap and continues to pick at her fruit bowl. “FRIDAY, where’s Tony?”

“He’s in the lab, as per usual,” FRIDAY replies. “Boss was actually the first to be alerted by a call, but it appears to have malfunctioned in the same way. He is currently attempting to fix the connection.”

“Something’s wrong, then,” Peter says. He shudders a little and rubs nervously at his neck. The hairs on his arms are standing up and he subconsciously prays it’s not what he knows it is. “When has SHIELD ever had a communication malfunction for no reason?”

“Suit up,” Steve suddenly says. “If Tony can’t get through to SHIELD then something is definitely—“

“Spidey-sense!” Peter suddenly shouts. “Everybody hit the floor!”

There is about a split second for everyone to react before a tsunami of fire roars through the glass wall overlooking the city and everything whites out.

===

“FRIDAY, what was that?” Tony asks absentmindedly as he pulls up another set of coding to run through the Starkpad systems again. “I thought I told Thor to stay away from the toasters.”

His question goes unanswered. At this, Tony leans back in his chair and takes a long drag from his cup of smoothie, glancing at the ceiling.

“FRIDAY, do I have to run manual voicebox checks again?” he asks, half jokingly. The humor falls flat when silence greets him once more and he stands up, fumbling with his watch communicator.

“Status report,” he says, jogging his way toward the armory. “Anyone, anyone?”

“Hi, Mr. Stark!” Peter’s sounds out of breath, but alive and relatively uninjured. “We, uh, kinda got a situation up here.”

“I think we got that, kid,” Tony tells him. His armor is whirring now, scaffolding and climbing the small of his back and he wishes the metal would unfold a little faster.

Details, details. There was food for thought about his next upgrade, and a new note for FRIDAY when he got her back online.

“So Mr. Barnes and Dr. Banner are trying to get systems back online,” Peter continues shouting. “I hope they’re okay, Dr. Banner wasn’t looking too good.”

“Right, well—“ The faceplate locks into place and Tony is pleasantly relieved to find that whatever had cut out FRIDAY hadn’t been able to touch his suit. “—you pass the comm along to Capsicle, alright? Go find Bruce, stay safe.”

“Can’t really do that right now, Mr. Stark!”

“And why is that?” Tony shoots back. If FRIDAY was down for the count there was a good chance the elevators would be down too. Besides, it would take too long for the elevator to climb up to the top anyways.

“Cap’s down,” Peter says. He grunts, most likely from a direct hit and doesn’t talk for a few moments, filling the comm link with only harsh breathing.

“Kid? Kid, stay with me.” Tony swears under his breath and decides that he could spare a few thousand dollars fixing one more wall. Without another thought, he throws himself through the glass panes and pushes his thrusters as hard as they can go.

“Never mind, Cap’s holding about six of ‘em,” Peter pants. “Nat’s on ground level evacuating people, and I think Mr. Rhodey is there too. Clint’s almost…Clint’s almost outta arrows though.”

Tony suddenly feels as though someone has dumped a bucket of ice water into his veins.

“You’re holding them off by _yourself?”_

“Yeah! I think! Clint’s helping!”

“For fuck’s sake, Pete,” Tony gripes. He can see the assailants now. They’re disgusting-looking creatures that snarl and chitter, spraying slimy spittle everywhere. Their mouths glint with rows upon rows of dangerously sharp fangs, and behind the rows of said dangerously sharp fangs lies a snake-like tongue that lashes viciously.

The top of Avengers Tower is sporting a large smoking crater now, and Tony inwardly winces. He can already imagine what Pepper was going to say when she got back from her conference in Germany.

It’s then Tony notices the jet speeding away from the scene. He doesn’t need FRIDAY in his ear to tell him that it’s far too late to pursue the aircraft.

“Are you coming soon, Mr. Stark?” The question is accompanied by a sickening crunch and a loud, inhuman screech. “‘Cause I think me and Clint can basically finish off the rest— oh, god that’s so gross.”

The teenager had barely finished his sentence before Tony lands behind him with both arms extended, blasters charging with their trademark whine.

“About damn time,” Clint snips from a few feet away.

“Nice to see you too, Legolas,” Tony replies, eyes not leaving the battle. He takes down three in one shot and is about to tackle the next swarm— where were they even _coming_ from?— when an ear-shattering roar rings through the Tower and two massive green hands tear through the floor and snatch up several of the creatures.

The hands waste no time slamming its palms together. Black fluid explodes from the creatures and they collapse to the floor in a heap, finally still.

With another thundering roar the Hulk is crashing through the floor beneath the fight, pounding a stained fist against his heaving chest

The other hand is holding a very pale Bucky Barnes and the super-soldier very nearly collapses when Hulk finally relinquishes his hold on him.

“What are these things?” Tony yells. His blasters tear through a few more of the shrieking things and stain his pristine floor.

“You know what, I haven’t the faintest clue,” Bucky says through gritted teeth as he kicks one out the gaping hole in the wall, “but I’ve got Nat on the ground. This place is getting torn apart too quickly for the civilians to be safe.”

“Chalk this attack up to the umpteenth time some baddie wants to throw hands,” Tony mutters wearily. He starts when Bucky suddenly charges past him and into a creature that had somehow snuck up from behind a trashed liquor cabinet.

“Focus, Stark,” he snarls, flipping the creature past his head and into the opposite wall.

“Sorry,” Tony says offhandedly. The lack of FRIDAY’s quips and diagrams in his face suddenly hits him full force and he retracts his helmet to increase his field of vision.

“Mr. Stark?”

Damn. He forgot the kid.

“Mr. Stark, do you want me to-”

“No,” Tony cuts him off. “What I want you to do is swing down there, say hi to Natasha for me, and assist in escorting civilians away from the area. Got it?”

Peter stops, a look of hurt indignance on his face. Tony can practically hear the words before they come out of his mouth.

“I thought you said I was allowed to tackle more serious missions now, sir,” Peter says. He backflips into a roundhouse kick into a creature’s face as if to prove his point. Tony drags the heel of his hand across his face and counts to three.

“I still get to decide what you can handle and what you can’t,” he says, twisting to face the teenager. “And right now the decision is for you to get your skinny butt down there, and-”

“MR. STARK LOOK OUT!”

Later Tony thinks that perhaps the first feeling he had should probably not have been anger that Peter was interrupting him, but nevertheless the brute strength of one of the straggling creatures overpowers him and when he next blinks he finds himself hurtling down into the pavement with the awful weight of the thing riding his back.

Something tears into him at the last second before he hits the ground, and he knows nothing more.

===

Peter screams something unintelligible when the creature throws its entire body onto the Iron Man suit. He doesn’t think, can’t think as he, too, flings himself out of the destroyed upper floor and lets himself fall.

Tony hits the ground hard, too hard, a second before Peter does. The creature’s head cracks on the pavement and rolls off the body, exposing a ragged piece of metal piping sticking up from Iron Man’s abdomen.

The world shudders, shudders, shudders, and one moment Peter is aware that he is screaming and the next he is somehow sprawled across the ground, retching into the dust.

He squeezes his eyes shut but the image lingers, lingers in all its abject horror.

Around him, cars screech to an abrupt halt. The noise blurs with the shouting of panicked civilians and makes his head hurt.

His arms scrabble bonelessly as he desperately attempts to push himself upright, but the smell of iron and blood hits him hard in the gut and he throws up again.

Then strong hands are dragging him away from the body and Peter bucks wildly, kicks, kicks into nothing and he is screaming and sobbing and there are hot shards of glass driving into his leg but he doesn’t care.

“Lemme go!” he howls, clawing at the figure behind him. His fingers meet the surface of fabric and he scratches fruitlessly at it. “ _Please!”_

“Stand down, Spider-Man,” Steve says firmly. His voice shakes a little behind the air of authority but his arms have pinned Peter’s behind his back and his grip is unwavering. “Medical’s on their way.”

“ _Shut up!”_ Dread swirls in the pit of Peter’s stomach like a sickening lead weight and Peter tosses his head back in some last-ditch effort to bite Steve. “ _Stop it, stop it, let me GO!”_

And perhaps it’s a final jolt of adrenaline through his frayed nerves, but Peter somehow kicks Steve in the crotch and tears himself away when the super-soldier’s vice-like grip loosens. His broken leg gives out on the first step but Peter still manages to stumble next to Tony’s (too-still, too-pale, too-definitely-not-breathing) frame and is beginning to yank the wooden beam from the man’s abdomen himself when a thin dart strikes him in his good leg.

Peter whirls to see Clint lowering his bow. His bloodshot, frenzied eyes meet pained blue ones.

“Sorry,” the archer mutters, and Peter can’t find the right thing to say to express the maelstrom that is his mind right now and the last thing he knows as he hits the ground is the Hulk’s giant hand gently laying his numb body to the ground.

===

Peter wakes up a half hour later in the medical wing and lies silently on his assigned bed.

The medical staff hold a brief discussion about setting his leg —local anesthetic would barely affect him with his augmented metabolism, and his accentuated healing could cause complications if the leg wasn’t set quickly enough— before actually going through with it. Everybody expects Peter to react badly when they begin moving his leg, but the boy does not even seem to register it.

A doctor puts a cast on his leg and tells the boy he will be back later to check how he was doing, and no one sees Peter slip out of the medical wing twenty minutes later and back into his room where he shuts his door and promptly returns to the floor.

Bruce is the first to see the empty bed next to Tony’s and when he finally convinces FRIDAY to get Peter’s door open he finds Peter nearly catatonic.

“It’s not your fault,” he says quietly from the door. His hands fiddle with a few torn threads in his sweater. “Tony’s strong. He’ll pull through.”

There is no response.

“Is your cast okay?” Bruce tries again. “We can change it if it’s too tight.”

When the man is met with silence once more Bruce tells Peter to stay hydrated and to get some rest and beats a hasty retreat.

===

That night, Peter doesn’t sleep. He spends the hours turning his phone over and over in his hands, watching and not registering the missed calls piling up from Ned and Aunt May and MJ.

He can’t stop the scene from repeating itself over and over in his head like some sick, broken tape. He should’ve listened. He should’ve stayed put. Hell, he should’ve done _anything else_ except put his mentor in peril.

A bitter laugh works its way up his throat. Scarcely two years ago he had lost his uncle Ben the same way, simply because he had been too petrified to do anything.

What good were his vows then? How could he ever face Mr. Stark again?

He was such an _idiot,_ an utter disappointment.

A lead weight settles heavily in his stomach and it’s never leaving, never leaving, never leaving

===

The first time Peter comes out of his room is a day and a half later at three AM to go down to the medical wing.

It still aches a little to use his bad leg to walk, but the cast helps, and he manages to make it to the elevators before he has to take a break. The quiet is a nice contrast to his strung-out thoughts and Peter feels the haze of anxiety crushing his chest lessen slightly.

He realizes he needs to take a shower soon.

The doors slide open and Peter steps inside, hand reaching for the floor number button.

“Heya, squirt.”

Peter looks up to see Rhodey leaning against the side of the elevator. The man is eating his way through a sandwich of some kind and the shirt he’s wearing is soaked with sweat. From the way Rhodey is leaning against the elevator wall Peter guesses he must have been working out his legs again.

“Hi, Mr. Rhodey,” Peter mumbles, averting the other’s gaze. He punches in the floor to the medical wing and watches the elevator doors glide closed.

He doesn’t want to be consoled right now because he knows it won’t help. Tony is still strapped to a gurney somewhere in the floors above and it’s his fault, his fault, _his fault-_

“On your way to see the man of snark himself?” Rhodey asks goodnaturedly. He takes another bite of sandwich and watches Peter look at literally anything but his face. “C’mon, you can talk. What, is there something on my face?”

“Yeah, I’m was gonna go visit Mr. Stark.” Peter cringes at the way his voice cracks on the last syllable. “Couldn’t sleep anyways.”

For a few uncomfortable seconds there is nothing but the rhythmic dinging of each rising floor.

“Betcha ten bucks Tony’s already upgraded his heart monitor while asleep.”

Peter says nothing. At this, Rhodey pauses, folds his sandwich back into its foil wrapper, and gives a small sigh.

“It wasn’t your fault, son,” he tells Peter. The boy’s chin goes stiff, but Peter’s gaze remains trained on the elevator door.

“I didn’t say it was,” Peter retorts after a moment. Despite Peter’s attempts to steel himself Rhodey can see a shiver run down the boy’s spine and everything tenses up. His heart twists at the sight.

“Your face said it,” Rhodey says simply. “You forget Steve and I have been in the army. I can tell you been beating yourself up about it since we came back and I’m here to tell you it’s not your fault.”

“Creepy, much?” Peter bites, but it doesn’t pack as much sting as the boy probably intended it to. The elevator continues to climb and he is beginning to seriously contemplate the pros and cons of stopping it and simply dashing out.

Anywhere but in this small, confined space where he did not have the familiar safety of his mask to hide behind. His anxiety is back, full-force, clawing into his heart and his soul and his mind and he wants to scream.

“Tony’s experienced with fighting,” Rhodey says. “And he’s got systems in that suit tellin’ him everything anyone could and would ever want to know about anything. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 _“Yes, I did!”_ Peter suddenly snaps. He seems to realize his outburst and immediately lowers his voice, but it’s as if some dam had burst and he can’t stop himself.

“I didn’t listen and I was being an asshole and Mr. Stark had to—“ Peter’s hands are shaking and he slams the heels his his palms into his eyes and clenches his teeth, riding out a particularly awful wave of utter helplessness and anger, “—had to go get me and all the thanks he gets from saving me is a pole through his stomach!”

The elevator stops and Rhodey quietly makes his way around Peter to hold the door open.

“— _great_ job Peter, the man that saved your ass more times than you can count and gave you a suit and an internship and runs a goddamn company, let’s just go and try to put on a show and fucking _impale_ him while we’re at it—“

There is no urgency as he watches Peter unload everything he’s buried in the past days. He knows it was better to end up a sobbing, wrung-out wreck than to let it fester, and Peter was no exception. When the boy’s tears begin to fall Rhodey decides to abandon holding open the door. He steps back into the elevator and cautiously envelops Peter’s trembling frame in a firm embrace.

“It’s alright, squirt,” he murmurs. His fingers run through Peter’s hair in soothing motions, ruffling and smoothing the soft tufts. “Tony’s gonna be just fine, you’ll see.”

Peter draws a deep, wavering breath and wipes at his face angrily. He flushes red when he fully realizes that he had been blubbering into the side of the colonel for the past minute and pries the older man off him. His hands reach up, nervously rubbing at the nape of his neck.

“Maybe I’ll just go back to my room,” he croaks. A smattering of hiccups momentarily overtakes his body and Rhodey gently rubs at the tense spot between the boy’s shoulder blades. “I feel like Mr. Stark’s gonna be sleeping anyways and he might be real mad and I shouldn’t be aggravating his-“

“Now I’m going to cut you off right there, Pete,” Rhodey says firmly. “Tony might be asleep, yes, but when he wakes up he will most definitely not be angry at you.”

“Right,” Peter says, but Rhodey can tell he does not believe the words at all.

“That door ain’t gonna hold itself open forever,” Rhodey chides softly. “Let’s go pay the man himself a visit, yeah?”

===

Peter can hear the sounds coming from Tony’s bed as soon as the doors to the medical wing open. At first he doesn’t know what to make of it, the quiet twisting of fabric on fabric and the small cries.

“Tony?” Rhodey whispers as he closes the door behind them. He tries his best to keep his leg braces from clanking too much, but they ring out starkly in the dead silence of the darkened room and the sounds continue.

“Mr. Stark? What’s wrong?” Peter asks. His voice sounds small and scared and he hates it.

From the mass of crumpled blankets in front of him Tony suddenly utters a garbled shout and kicks out violently, legs entangled in the sheets. The feeling of being trapped seems to agitate him further as he struggles to free himself. Peter is so close to him now he can see the way the man’s face is too pale, too sweaty.

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see what was going on.

“Mr. Stark, wake up, you’re okay,” Peter says. He tries to lift the sheets from between Tony’s legs but they are so bunched up he can’t get much leverage.

“His IV’s out.” Rhodey mutters some colorful phrases as he picks up the dripping needle from the puddle of fluid it had been sitting in for god-knows-how-long, fiddling with the tape around the edge. “I don’t think putting it back in right now is a good option.”

He sighs and rubs at his chin. “I ain’t no doctor,” he admits. “Maybe it’s best we called somebody ‘cause even if I don’t know what this does, I _do_ know that having this out ain’t a good thing.”

“No, no doctors,” Peter says. “Even I’d freak if the first thing I woke up to were people in lab coats holding down my arms.”

He allows himself to crouch slowly, grimacing at the ache that radiates up his bad leg, until he is eye level with his mentor.

“Mr. Stark, wake up,” he whispers. Tony’s face contorts and he jerks.

“...you can’t,” the mechanic groans. “...no. Peter.”

Peter jerks back as though he had been slapped.

“Oh, Tony,” Rhodey breathes.

“Okay, maybe we _should_ leave after all,” Peter suddenly murmurs weakly. He scrambles back from the bed on all fours until his back has touched a wall and stares incredulously at Tony.

“...not Peter,” Tony pleads, lips pale. “...no no nono no…”

“C’mon, Mr. Rhodey we should-“

“He’s dreaming about you,” Rhodey interrupts. “He’s having the worst nightmare I’ve seen in months, and it’s about you.”

He turns to face Peter and finds the boy cowering into the wall as though he could somehow melt through it. His hands are twisting themselves into pretzels and even by the dim glow of the machines Rhodey thinks he can see tears falling from Peter’s face again.

“I know, I know, I’m probably the last person Mr. Starks wants to see right now.” Peter’s words trip over each other in a panicked jumble. “It’s my fault he’s freaking out and stuff but if he wakes up and sees me, I-I don’t wanna give him a panic attack or anything, maybe you should just stay with him, Mr. Rhodey, and I’ll just...I’ll just leave—“

“Pete, stop,” Rhodey demands. He abandons the IV line and makes his way across the room until he’s directly in front of the distraught teenager. Peter sniffles and looks up at him, attempting to look as put-together as he can.

“Tony’s having a nightmare, yes,” Rhodey begins, giving Peter a look when the boy looks like he might begin babbling again, “but it’s definitely not about how horrible you are. He’d die before he admits this to anyone but he loves you like the son he never had, and if anything, that man needs your more than anybody else in this stinkin’ Tower right now.”

“But I almost got him—“ the word sticks in Peter’s throat and makes his stomach flip again.

“Tony needs you right now,” Rhodey repeats firmly. There is a resolution in his voice that leaves no room for argument. _“Go.”_

Slowly, painfully, Peter collects himself enough to stand and wobble to the side of Tony’s bed. He tries to think of the best way to wake his mentor up in this situation.

It turns out he doesn’t have to wake up the man at all because Tony suddenly bolts upright in his bed with a garbled shout, reaching out blindly at nothing and successfully startles Peter so badly the boy jumps and sticks to the ceiling.

For a few moments there is nothing but heavy breathing.

 _“Fuck,”_ is the first thing that leaves Tony’s mouth. He wipes his mouth and draws a long breath from between his fingers, allowing himself to calm down. It’s then he sees Peter crouching awkwardly above him.

“Oh, god,” Tony mutters thickly. He gingerly lays himself back onto his bed and clutches at his wounded abdomen. “How long...how long have you and Rhodes been watching me sleep?”

“Not that long, Tony,” Rhodey says. Relief is evident in his voice even if he doesn’t mention it.

“Still long enough to be weird,” Tony moans. His half-lidded eyes flit lazily toward Peter. “Isn’t it a tad after your bedtime, kid?”

Peter doesn’t answer. He simply lands on the floor with a quiet thud, collapses into the chair next to Tony’s bed, and begins to cry.

“Aw,” Tony says. “Aw, jeez.”

His voice has no bite to it.

“I’m sorry,” are the first words Peter manages past hiccups. “‘M sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Tony tells him. He extends his arms awkwardly past the tangle of wires attached to him and doesn’t voice the jolt of pain that lances through his stomach when Peter returns the hug. “I’m fine. It’s fine, really.”

Rhodey purses his lips. “How a man can both be so simultaneously correct and not is blowing my mind,” he finally says.

Peter manages a watery smile. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he says. He seems to realize _what_ exactly he’s said a second too late and scrambles to rectify his words. “Not _fine_ fine, but like, I mean-”

“We got it,” Tony chuckles quietly. He winces as he retracts his arms. “Go to bed, kid.”

“I will if you let medical put that IV back in.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Such a little shit,” he says, gaze rolling over to Rhodey, who is wearing a similar expression. “Fine, you win. Go to bed.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”

Tony watches the teenager leave, the ghost of a fond smile tugging at his lips.

“Goodnight, kid.”


End file.
